I race handicapped by PHRF Lake Ontario which has no rating adjustment for whisker pole length. I picked up a Forespar Line Control which goes out to 22', a fair bit for a 30' boat.
In light air, 4 knots TWS, setting the sails perpendicular to the wind works as well as anything else I have tried. That has the pole low at both ends, barely above the lifelines. At a higher wind speed the common advise is to trim the genoa so the wind flows around it as opposed to it being a barn door. That will bring the pole back so it is more perpendicular to the wind, usually the inboard end up the mast a bit and the leach pointing into the wind. A bit like trimming a spinnaker. Forespar has a diagram here: https://www.forespar.com/pdf/F6.1-whisker-pole-brochure.pdf Not having the leech bouncing around helps. For me that means adjusting the inboard end to get enough down pressure. For a genoa with a 21' LP I will use all 22' of whisker pole in light air and about 18' in moderate air. In heavier air I switch to the spin pole which is 14.5' ( oversized and I take a penalty ). I can tell it is not optimal but works OK. Michael Brown Windburn C&C 30-1 Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2019 12:42 PM Cc: David Knecht <davidakne...@gmail.com> We race non-spinnaker class and a few years ago I got an extendable whisker pole for the genoa. I am unsure about optimal settings for pole height and length. I suspect it is sometimes suboptimal because I have noticed some boats able to carry the genoa poled out at much closer angles than I have achieved. Presumably the optimal pole angle is near perpendicular to the apparent wind. It seems that extending the pole flattens the sail to some extent but I suspect it is more complicated than that. Height I have no idea. Any general rules of thumb? Related to this, the VMG chart I have from C&C has optimal VMG downwind apparent angle of about 140-145? true. Are those numbers +spinnaker, -spinnaker standard or -spinnaker wing on wing with whisker pole? Thanks- Dave S/V Aries 1990 C&C 34+ New London, CT
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